Breaking Bad's Dean Norris Joins Ridley Scott's The Counselor

As far as I’m concerned, every member of the Breaking Bad ensemble should be able to pick any job they want. To take it one step further, it’d be great if every film greenlit from here on out was required to hire at least one actor from the Breaking Bad ensemble. Preferably Bryan Cranston or Aaron Paul. But if Sir Ridley Scott wants Bad actor Dean Norris to join his production The Counselor, that’s more than fine with us.

Norris, a veteran character actor, expertly plays DEA agent Hank Schrader on AMC’s masterful meth drama. Now Variety says he’ll transition to Scott’s big-screen thriller, which also has a drug angle. Scott will be working off of a screenplay by award-winning author Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men, The Road) about a lawyer who attempts to get into the drug trade. Needless to say, things go horribly wrong. So yes, it sounds a little like the personal and professional decline of Walter White on Bad. So long as Norris isn’t being asked to play a DEA agent on the tail of the wayward attorney, we should be OK.

Sir Ridley has a fantastic cast in addition to Norris. He already recruited a few actors with which he’d previously collaborated, including Michael Fassbender (Prometheus) and Brad Pitt (Thelma & Louise), plus Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz. The Counselor is working toward a 2013 release date. From there, Scott allegedly will move on to his Blade Runner sequel/prequel or, perhaps, a Prometheus sequel. As for Norris, he’s also tapped to star alongside Nicolas Cage and John Cusack in The Frozen Ground.